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“I always had a dream that I could put a car in the living room,” says Kyle Evans, a Chrysler designer and half the duo living in a repurposed heating and cooling warehouse near a Woodward Avenue suburban Detroit uptown. “I wanted to do that so people would see the car as sculpture or a piece of art. Then they could see vehicles as a designer sees them, the way I do.” So along with Detroit native Michael Chetcuti, a custom fabricator, building designer and car nut, Evans created his dream space, finished in 2009 after two years of remodeling.

The details: The home and garage total 5,600 square feet with just one permanent bedroom, although an alcove separated from the main living room contains a Murphy bed. On the west side of the home is a two-car garage with glass garage doors front and back. The rear garage door opens into a courtyard, which is faced on two other sides by walls of windows. Behind one is the bedroom. That means the cars—Chetcuti and Evans have about a dozen—in the garage can be seen from the bed, a design we notice a growing number of car nuts are following. Behind the second wall of windows is the 22-foot-tall main living room, which always has at least one car present. Floors are all polished concrete with radiant heat.

There is an upstairs living room, walled by windows, and two outdoor terraces. Crafty use of railings and half-walls keeps the areas private. The entire house is filled with trinkets and mechanical toys.

“It didn't take us long to get used to all the windows, but it is an issue; sometimes people come up to the windows and take pictures of the cars inside,” says Chetcuti, 48, who runs auto supplier Quality Metalcraft (QMC) and is a co-owner of Jeep aftermarket company American Expedition Vehicles, as well as restaurant, design and building companies.

Evans and Chetcuti are both outdoor rock-crawling, car-trekking adventurers. Says Evans, 32, a D.C. native, “ The advantage of [growing up in] D.C. is that everyone drives all kinds of cars. There is a great deal of variety. It allows you to open your eyes beyond exotics and muscle cars and see what comes from the other side of the pond.” His favorite cars, though, are thoroughly American, from the '55 Chevy he had as his first car to his grand father's V8-powered Levi's-upholstered Jeep CJ. Chetcuti's first car was a 1972 Mercury Capri into which he installed a Ford 289 V8 while he was learning the fabrication business at QMC, a carmaker supplier started by his father in 1964.

These skills allowed him to make a unique body kit for the car, and he's been tinkering ever since.

This article originally appeared in the Nov. 26, 2012 issue of Autoweek. To get Autoweek delivered to your door biweekly, click here.